Step 8 What does it mean?

Now that you have completed your experiment and analyzed the results it is time to figure out what it all means.

Conclusion and Discussion

Use the experiment data to answer the experiment question, to draw conclusions, and to determine the need for any future investigations of similar questions.

Conclusion

The conclusion is generally short and should answer your research question.Try this:
Restate your hypothesis; Accept, reject or modify your hypothesis; give specific evidence from your data in support of your decision (accepting, rejecting or modifying).

It is important to be honest and fair about your conclusion. Your graph may very will appear to support your hypothesis but if there were problems with your experimental design then perhaps you cannot conclude that your data support your hypothesis.

Discussion

The discussion is essentially an essay about the meaning of your experiment and your findings. Here are some things to consider when planning for this writing.

• What patterns or trends did the data show?
• How strong is the relationship between the independent and dependent variable?
• Were you able to answer the experiment question?
• Did your experiment have any problems or did the data contain any errors?
• How could this experiment be improved upon or advanced?

Importance to Community/Science

• How could this data be used to help others, to advance understanding of things, or to solve some problem?
• Who could use this information in the real world?
• How do your results benefit society of science in general?